Just a quick note on Bonnie's sudden weight loss: it was on purpose, lol. I plan on having her slowly gain the weight back. I believe that some people are stress eaters, and other people are stress starvers. Bonnie would fall into the latter category. When faced with a tremendous amount of physical or mental stress, she loses all desire to eat. Thus, the waif look. Oh, and only four more chapters until the season finale! :D Thank God for labor day and brilliantly timed inspiration, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to type this up.
Cameo, Cameo, where art thou cameo?
I don't know what made me decide to put Thame in story, but I just felt that Clyde needed a little side story of his own, to introduce his traits to the story a little. What does it have to do with the main story? Nothing, lol, but this way I can do a Dillard update and a Six Degrees update at the same time! *just a reminder: Clyde is one of Bonnie's younger brothers*
I think they make a rather good couple, do you? :)
Oh, and you might be wondering why she looks different. Well, I gave three Dillards a makeover, because I felt that their "pronounced" facial features, coupled with their pale skin, set off way too many alarms. I didn't want to change the skin, so I tweaked the facial features instead. I tried to keep the spirit of each sim intact, and I did pretty darn good, if I do say so myself.
...although Angie and Beau now somewhat resemble Ella Cartez and Dave Navarro. Oh, and my game decided to crash while saving, so the new new Dillards may look slightly different than the Dillards in the picture. Sigh.
Angie Dillard
Thame Dillard
Beau Dillard and his Navarro-ness
And that's all I have for today, folks! I'd say more about the chapter, but I think it pretty much speaks for itself.
My first day of the school year started yesterday, and already I feel overwhelmed by real life duties. As usual, I completely overestimated how well I'd be able to juggle all of this plus school. I'll be checking in frequently and reading all of your stories, but once again, Six Degrees will be put on the back burner. I wouldn't call this a hiatus, but more of a warning that the updates will return to its sporadic state.
In reference to SV Times (btw- I loved the fishing update!), I'm not sure if I'll be able to post on it as often as I would have liked to when I offered to sign on. I will try to write at least two SV Times articles this year though, because they seem like fun writing exercises. Maybe I can somehow convince myself that it counts as English homework. :)
Meanwhile, I'll probably update this blog with random stuff as usual. I'm currently messing around with building stuff, and maybe creating a Sunset Valley 2.0. I've already remodeled most of Sunset Valley in-game, so I figured there wouldn't be any harm in experimenting with SV Lite in CAW. It's a major project and I'm not completely sure about it, so I'm not going to devote a lot of time to it.
I hate making blog posts without pictures, so...here are some pictures!
Ella with Eric's guitar. Pretty cool (and accidental) posing. :)
This was a hard chapter to plan out. I knew what would happen with Bonnie ahead of time, but everything else just kind of happened out of the blue.
I love (and worked so hard for) Ella and Jordy, but writing the scene between Ella and Eric made me a little teary. Honestly, I don't know which pair I'm rooting for anymore. Oh well, just makes it all the more fun.
I skipped Michele's part because things are going incredibly well for her, and this isn't exactly a "perky" chapter. It wouldn't have flowed well. She'll have some drama in one or two chapters though, it depends on how quickly Luke decides to move.
I also skipped Alex because, well, Alex is boring.
Bonnie is all sorts of miserable, as usual, but something might happen in the near future to perk her up considerably. I have plans for that girl, indeed I do. muahahahahaha
Anyway, I should go now. Thank you all so much for reading. <3
So, that was quite a fun chapter to try and crank out! I purposely focused very little on Ella because her massive ego took up 75% of the first season, and I don't want that to happen to the second season. I don't know where this whole Eric-Ella-Jordan triangle is going, but it might end in tears. The main reason why I wanted to throw him back into the mix is because he was a relevant part of Ella's life before moving from Bridgeport, and I felt that with their off-again on-again past, she moved on just a wee bit too quickly. She has a habit of doing that, actually. I also threw him back in there because I think he's awesome. There, I admit it.
Now that I think about it, all of my female characters are "moving on" rather quickly, in a sense. Harlots, the lot of 'em. Off with their heads!
*ahem* Anyway, as you can see, Bonnie's road to recovery will be very difficult and her family isn't making it any easier. I really wanted to highlight the conflict between Bonnie's interests and the interests of her mother and therapist, because I feel that there's a lot of grey area that needs to be highlighted. Bonnie's unstable, so her mother and therapist feel that she should stay in the psych ward until she's been properly medicated and counseled. Bonnie, however, just wants to be out of the place; she feels that she'd have a much better chance of recovery if she were left to deal with her demons in peace. Jack kind of represents the neutral side of things; he knows that going back is what's best for Bonnie, but he also knows that sending her back could end badly. It's all a mess, really. A wonderful mess.
Michele is just being really stupid, and there's no explanation for that really. She's starstruck, and she's only been on two or three dates with guys other than Alex, so of course she's stupidly curious about another guy other than her fiance. This is the potential danger of high-school sweethearts, folks! I know that most HS sweethearts end in tears in most cases, but some of them carry on for the long-term. I do know which category Alex and Michele will fall into, but I'm not allowed to tell you yet. ;)
Another thing this chapter attempted to reveal is that Michele herself is a bit of a socially awkward 'fraidy-cat. The only difference is, Alex's fearfulness is so severe that it makes Mich look normal.
And now, here is a video of Beau dancing in his underwear that I recorded quite awhile ago and just edited today. For some reason, the music skips, but whatever:
And now, I am missing my Dillards again. I'll probably check in on them again at some point. Life With Angie must go on!
It's been about a week since the season finale went up, so I thought I should list some updates that have happened since then:
-The Season 2 banner went up
-Part 1 of The Drumming Song has been written (I still have some other parts to add in before posting the entire thing)
-Season 2 Character Bios have been completed, and missing links have been corrected
-Scene "sets" have been constructed, with the exception of a few sets.
WOOOO! Finale!! :D I can only hope I did this season justice. I'm really excited for the next one. I know I didn't really focus on Bonnie that much this season, but as the new banner will hint, she'll have her moment in the sun. I did feel bad about taking her precious Jordy away from her, but I felt that things wouldn't have worked out between them anyway.
Writing about Bonnie's attempt to off herself was hard for me, because I didn't want to make light of it, but I also didn't want to delve so deeply into it that it became a trigger. So why do it in the first place, you ask? Well, because I had to put her in the psychiatric hospital for something. You'll find out more about that in the next season. :) Also, I know it's a little dramatic to have a character so distraught over a break-up that they have a mental breakdown, but it'll all make sense soon...promise.
The Season Two banner is a lot darker and a lot more "glamorous", mostly because it will deal with some "darker" issues and, well, I just really wanted to have a high-fashion photo shoot. To me, the Season One banner symbolized new beginnings (Michele and Alex finally getting together, Mark getting kicked out of the trailer, Ella moving away from Bridgeport, etc.) so it was much brighter and perkier. Now, with all that has happened (Ella "stealing" Jordan, Mark completely destroying Ella, Bonnie basically having her heart ripped out of her chest, etc.), it would make sense that the banner would be a lot gloomier.
But really, the main point of this banner is to show that high-fashion photo shoots are SO FUN. Seriously. You get to dress your sims up in absurd makeup, decadent outfits, and snooty poses, and with a few lighting tricks, it doesn't look ridiculous. I tried to keep it as close to "them" as possible, so I didn't go all-out for Michele (she just isn't the type) but I really went for it with Ella and Bonnie. She has blue eyeshadow, but you can't tell in the banner. ANYWAY, it's no fair to keep talking about the banner and not showing it to you guys, so I'll post it here ahead of time.
Zee new banner!
And of course, the Season 2 theme song:
I'll be taking a few days to prep for the next season (I have to update the character profiles), so expect a new chapter from season 2 very shortly.
Ah, and now we're focusing on the boring couple, if only for a little bit. :) Leave it to a surprise (almost) pregnancy to make things not-so-boring, eh?
This chapter definitely took the longest to write, simply because I thought it was boring. I kept wanting to toss in some sort of drama or conflict to make things seem less boring, but that wouldn't be true to their personalities or the simplistic and idyllic nature of their relationship. I'm sure that when the day comes, they'll have their own dramas with wedding arrangements and child-rearing. Or maybe their dramas will consist of something different? Who knows? I do. *cackle*
